Command & Conquer Renegade done right

A first-person Command & Conquer game: it sounded like a good idea at the turn of the millennium, but the tripe that EA and Westwood turned out - Command & Conquer: Renegade - was, well, tripe.

Thank goodness for a group of fans determined to do better - much better, by the looks of things.

In 2007 they embarked on a project called Renegade, an Unreal Tournament 3 mod that would be everything C&C: Renegade wasn't. Six years later it's almost done: Renegade X will be released 26th February 2014.

This is an admirably free and non-profit pursuit, the game created in the team's - Totemarts' - spare time.

Gameplay itself is first- and third-person, and both teams - Nod and GDI - will have bases to look after, as they do in the C&C strategy games. You'll be able to manage your own economies, choosing from more than 30 weapons, 15 vehicles and massive attacks such as nuclear strikes, ion cannons, air strikes and more.

If structures are destroyed, various upgrades will be lost to you. In other words, there's a layer of tactics and strategy on top of the blam blam blam, which also looks entertaining. There's all sorts of vehicular combat mixed in as well.

Betas for Renegade have been released before, as has the single-player campaign, Black Dawn, in 2012.

The multiplayer in Renegade X will apparently be in beta shape when the game launches. "That means that although all core features will be in the game, it will not be the finished product," Totemarts explained. "We plan on releasing patches, new maps, and new features throughout 2014."

Bertie is a senior staff writer, which doesn't mean he's old, although he is, a bit. He's part of the furniture here and reports on all kinds of things, the stranger the better. He's a bit odd but then who isn't? @Clert on Twitter.